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THE PRESENT PROBLEMS OF 

NEW TESTAMENT STUDY 

-r 



THE 

PRESENT PROBLEMS 

OF 

i^eti^ Eestament Stutrg 

By William Bancroft Hill 

Professor of Biblical Literature 

in 

Vassar College 



EDWIN S. GORHAM, PUBLISHER 

FOURTH AVE. & zzd STREET 

1903 






THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS. 

Two Copies Rec*>iveo 

OCT 6 1903 

Copyright Entry 

cuss OL XXc. No 

4> ^ ^ *f f 
COPY fl. 



Copyright, 1903, hy Edwin S. Gorham 



The Heintzemann Press, Boston 



^ 



To 

Those who have begun with me 

The study of the problems outlined in this book 

I dedicate it 

In memory of pleasant days tog-ether 



THE purpose of this little book is single and 
unambitious, namely, to give with clearness a 
brief description of the two main fields of New 
Testament study, and the problems that occupy 
scholars in them today. Before one can read intel- 
ligently an elaborate discussion of any of those prob- 
lems, he must have some general knowledge of the 
whole subject. This I have endeavored to put 
within his reach. There are many and excellent 
treatises on Textual Criticism and New Testament 
Introduction. The present book is not in any way 
to be classed with these, but is simply the first step 
to their acquaintance. 

At the same time I have had in mind the wants 
of those who lack time or opportunity for study 
along these lines, and yet have a natural desire to 
know what topics are most prominently before New 
Testament scholars just now, and what opinions are 
held concerning them. To such the latter part of 
the book will probably be of special interest, but I 
trust they will find all of it attractive and helpful. 
If it gives an answer to questions which may have 
arisen in their minds as they read about New Testa- 
ment criticism, or calms their fears as to whither 
that criticism tends, I shall feel that the book has 
not been in vain. 



New Testament Problems 



Bible study may be either devotional or critical. 
In the former case the heart is the great inter- 
preter of the sacred teachings, and the desire of 
the student is to find in them a guide and com- 
fort for his daily life. That this is the most 
illuminating form of study, all agree. As Martin 
Luther said, " An old woman who reads her Bible 
in the chimney corner knows more about God than 
do the great doctors of philosophy." But critical 
study also is necessary if we would know what 
the Bible really is and teaches ; there are prob- 
lems in it for the scholar as well as precepts for 
the child. Unfortunately, — and the fact is a 
sad commentary upon human nature, — the word 
criticism, which means simply intelligent and dis- 
criminating study, suggests fault-finding and hos- 
tility. In popular thought the critics of the 

[1] 



New Testament Prohlems 

Bible are men bent upon destroying the sacredness 
and authority of the Book, and BibHcal criticism 
is a thing greatly to be deplored. Whereas, it 
ought to be recognized that the vast majority of 
critics are devout and earnest men whose work 
is inspired by a deep love for the Word of God 
and a desire to know it accurately and set it forth 
in all its purity and power. To speak of criti- 
cism as " a menace to the Bible " is absurd, unless, 
forsooth, the Bible cannot bear honest and close 
investigation. 

We sometimes hear it stated that Biblical criti- 
cism at present has turned away from the New 
Testament to the Old, having practically settled 
all important questions in the former field. Like 
many statements this is largely true and yet mis- 
leading. That which arouses heated discussion 
in Old Testament study to-day is the attempt to 
prove that the religion of the Hebrews, and es- 
pecially what is known as the Law, does not date 
back in its completed form to the time of Moses, 
but was a gradual growth and development, whose 
progress may be traced from before the Exodus 
down to the days after the Return from Exile. 
It is the recognition of evolution in Hebrew re- 
ligious life and literature. It involves some radical 
departures from familiar opinions concerning many 
of the Old Testament documents; and it greatly 
[2] 



The Present Interest 

disturbs the minds of those who fear that the au- 
thority of the Book will be destroyed if the new 
views are accepted. 

There was a time when New Testament study 
presented an equally exciting conflict between those 
who would carry the origin of almost all its books 
far down into the second century, — thus making 
our knowledge of Christ and the Apostolic Church 
extremely uncertain, — and those who defended 
the traditional views. But that time is no more. 
With the exception of here and there an erratic 
scholar who seeks to gain a reputation by assail- 
ing all accepted opinions, no one doubts that prac- 
tically all of our New Testament books were written 
in the first century, within the lifetime of those 
who had known Christ or His immediate disciples. 

Nevertheless, there are more scholars engaged 
to-day in critical study of the New Testament than 
of the Old ; and the problems they are consider- 
ing are of more importance to us. For while the 
Old Testament is closely connected with the New, 
the two cannot be regarded with equal interest. 
Judaism was not the parent but only the cradle 
of Christianity, — a cradle she quickly forsook. 
And though we may without great uneasiness hear 
scholars declare that Moses did not write Deuter- 
onomy, we should be profoundly concerned if ar- 
guments of weight were brought forward to prove 
[3] 



New Testament Problems 

that Jesus did not speak the Sermon on the Mount. 
For this reason we are always interested in New 
Testament criticism, and eager to learn what the 
latest word in it may be. And while it is never 
easy to ascertain the consensus of current scholar- 
ship, the task is made less difficult just now by 
the recent completion of two great Bible diction- 
aries in which the leading scholars of Europe and 
America have given us their views. 



II. 



There are two distinct fields of New Testa- 
ment criticism, in both of which scholars are hard 
at work. One is the Textual or the Lower Criticism, 
where the endeavor is to secure a correct text, i. e. 
the exact words of the inspired authors. The 
work here is pursued along three different lines. 
First, the existing Greek manuscripts must be 
examined, and their different readings noted. Most 
of these manuscripts are too late to be of much 
value in determining the text; they are copies 
of copies down through the centuries before print- 
ing was invented. But no manuscript is absolutely 
worthless ; and they can all be arranged in groups 
according to their origin (as we shall see later), 
and in this way be made to testify concerning 
[4] 



The Lower Criticism 

general types of variations. And by study of these 
variations we can get back of our earliest manu- 
scripts, and make a pretty confident guess as to 
what the original text must have been. Second, 
there are certain versions, i. e. translations, which 
were made before any of the existing manuscripts. 
The translator must, therefore, have used an earlier 
manuscript than any we now possess; and by 
studying his version carefully we may discover 
what the text of that manuscript was. Of course, 
there is a twofold difficulty in doing this : — the 
document which gives us the version is not an 
original one, and may contain the mistakes of 
a copyist, and we are not always sure what words 
to use when we undertake to translate the version 
back once more into Greek. Still, the versions are 
a most important help in determining the original 
Greek. Third, there are the writings of the Ante- 
Nicene Church Fathers, which are full of quota- 
tions from the New Testament also taken from 
an earlier text than any now at hand. By a study 
of these quotations we may discover what that 
text must have been. But the same possibility 
of changes by later copyists confronts us ; and 
there is the further difficulty that we are never 
sure the Father himself was accurate in his quo- 
tations. He may have given the exact words of 
a Scripture passage, or he may have been content 
[5] 



New Testament Problems 

to give the sense of it in his own words. Thus 
we have three sources from which to gain the 
original text. And while none of them is so in- 
fallible that we can afford to disregard the other 
two, yet if all three agree substantially, we can 
accept their testimony with confidence. 



III. 



The other field is the Higher Criticism. It is 
given that name because it presupposes and is 
based upon the Lower ' Criticism ; but the term is 
unfortunate since it seems to imply superiority and 
patronage. When to the obnoxious word, criti- 
cism, we join the likewise irritating adjective, 
higher, we cannot wonder that the very name, 
Higher Criticism, awakens hostility in the minds 
of those who do not exactly understand what it 
means. But higher criticism is a most innocent 
and profitable pursuit, and is what each student 
is always urged to undertake if he would make 
himself an intelligent Bible scholar. In beginning 
the study of any book of the New Testament 
certain questions present themselves. First, there 
is the question of Integrity. Is the book a unit, 
or is it made up of independent parts which were 
put together later on ? For example, John 7 : 53 
[6] 



The Higher Criticism 

— 8 : 11, — the story of the woman taken in adul- 
tery, — is evidently not by the same writer as the 
rest of the Gospel: the style, the vocabulary, and 
the fact that in different manuscripts it is found 
inserted in different places, indicate this. That 
it is a true story we are ready to agree, but cer- 
tainly it is not an integral part of the Fourth 
Gospel. Next, there is the question of Authorship. 
Some books bear an author's name, — are they 
genuine or forgeries ? The discussion as to whether 
Paul was the author of the Pastoral Epistles would 
come under this head. Other books, e. g. the Four 
Gospels and Acts, are anonymous. Shall we accept 
the authorship which tradition has assigned, or 
may that be a mistake ? Then there is the question 
of Date, — when was the book written? And of 
Place, — where was it written? And of Purpose, 

— under what circumstances and for what ob j ect 
was it written? All these questions bear strongly 
upon the most important of all, — the question of 
Credibility. Is the book reliable? Can we accept 
its statements as those of an honest, intelligent, 
unbiased person who had opportunity to know the 
truth of what he writes? This is often called the 
question of Authenticity ; but the term has un- 
fortunately been confounded with genuineness, and 
so should be avoided as ambiguous. There are still 
further questions as to the Literary Form of the 

[7] 



New Testament Problems 

book. Is it poetry or prose? — history or fiction? 
— prophecy or apocalypse ? — a letter in which the 
writer has in mind a special recipient, or an epistle 
intended for any who may care to read it? We 
must reach a conclusion about these matters before 
we can understand the book. To interpret the 
Revelation of John as if it were the same form 
of literature as the Gospel of John, or to treat 
the Epistle of James like Paul's letter to the Philip- 
pians, may lead us into serious mistakes. 

Now all these questions belong to the field of 
the Higher Criticism. Here the task is to take 
the text furnished by the Lower Criticism, and 
from a careful study of it, under whatever light 
may be thrown upon it by history, determine, if 
possible, the integrity, the authorship, the date, 
the purpose, and the credibility of each book. This 
work is indispensable if we are to give the book 
our full and intelligent confidence. It is a more 
interesting work than that of the Lower Criticism, 
except to some few minds so constituted as to find 
keen delight in poring over crabbed manuscripts, 
and tracing their minute agreements and dissimi- 
larities. But it is also a work in which there is more 
room for indulging personal prejudices, or fram- 
ing novel theories. And because some of the higher 
critics have done this, the study has at times been 
brought into disrepute. In a land like Germany 
[8] 



The New Testament Text 

where competition among scholars is most keen, 
and the ambitious student has Httle chance to draw 
attention to himself and secure a coveted professor- 
ship unless he can set forth novel ideas and advo- 
cate them with ingenuity, a premium is put upon 
erratic scholarship ; and much harm has resulted. 
The field of Bible study there is strewn with ex- 
ploded theories ; and for sober, well-balanced work 
we look more to England and America. But there 
are signs of a reaction in Germany to-day, and 
of increasing honor to the scholars whose aim is 
to instruct rather than to startle. 



IV. 



These, then, are the two fields in which scholars 
are working. The question of interest to us is, 
What are they doing in them? What are the 
problems that receive special attention, and what 
solutions of them meet with most favor .^^ We will 
begin with the Lower Criticism. 

When Westcott & Hort in 1881 published their 
Greek New Testament, in the preparation of which 
they had been engaged twenty-eight years, it was 
generally accepted as giving a final, authoritative 
text, which nothing could disturb except, perhaps, 
the discovery of still more ancient manuscripts. 
[9] 



New Testament Problems 

And, in fact, the editors confidently declared, " It 
would be an illusion to anticipate important changes 
of text from any acquisition of new documents." 
Their statement may be accepted; and ^^et, there 
is a growing disposition to regard their work as 
not quite so final as they supposed. No new text 
to take its place may for the present be given us, 
though scholars are at work upon such a one ; but 
we cannot be quite as confident as formerly that 
we have practically the original text of the New 
Testament. How this has come about, let us see. 
The manuscripts of the New Testament are 
overwhelming in number. The earher ones are 
called uncials, because written in separated, capital 
letters ; and of these there are more than a hun- 
dred, though the majority of them are mere frag- 
ments. The later manuscripts are called either 
minuscules, because written in smaller letters, or 
cursives, because the letters are joined in a running 
hand. Of these there are more than two thousand ; 
and if we add to them the lectionaries, which were 
Scripture lessons arranged to be read during the 
church 3"ear, we have about three thousand. A 
single manuscript containing all the New Testa- 
ment, would be of inconvenient size, except, perhaps, 
for pulpit use ; so the books were usually arranged 
in four collections, — the Gospels, Acts and the 
Catholic Epistles, the Pauline Epistles, and the 
[10] 



I 



The New Testament Teoct 

Apocalypse. Of these collections we have preserved 
in greatest numbers the Gospels, and in least, the 
Apocalypse. To examine all the manuscripts and 
note their readings would be impossible; and most 
of the later ones are not worth the labor. Yet the 
mere question of age does not determine value. A 
late manuscript may be an accurate copy of a 
very early one now lost, and thus be almost as 
valuable as the early one itself; or an early man- 
uscript, — one of the uncials, — may be full of 
blunders by some careless scribe, and thus be an 
untrustworthy document. 

It would seem at first sight, therefore, an almost 
hopeless task to distinguish among manuscripts, 
and determine which ones to follow. But Westcott 
& Hort simplified the problem greatly by placing 
them in four groups according to their probable 
origin. The genealogy of the New Testament 
manuscripts, if we look at their history, might be 
compared to that of a human family. The original 
text, which we are so eager to discover, would be 
the common ancestor, — the great forefather of all. 
The sources of the four groups would be four sons, 
each closely resembling but not exactly like the 
father. The present multitude of manuscripts 
would be the descendants of these four sons, bear- 
ing a strong family resemblance, but having in- 
dividual peculiarities, and occasionallv by inter- 

[11] 



New Testament Problems 

marriage with members of the other families 
reproducing their characteristics. The task of 
the critic, accordingly, is first by a study of the 
common features of each group to determine the 
character of its primitive source, and then to 
decide which one of the four sources was probably 
most like the original text, and should be used as 
the best authority in recovering that text. The 
manner in which this is done is full of technical 
details ; the results are all we are now concerned 
to know. 

When Erasmus, just before the Reformation, 
prepared the Greek text which was practically the 
one used for the King James version of the New 
Testament, the manuscripts he studied all belonged 
to one group which Westcott & Hort call the 
Syrian, from the probable place of its origin. 
The group is a very large one, and includes the 
great majority of existing manuscripts. Though 
the text of this group originated as early as the 
fourth century, it bears evident marks of being 
a deliberate revision. Changes have been intro- 
duced to improve the style or remove difficulties 
which might puzzle the reader; and the general 
attempt of the authors was to give a smooth and 
attractive text " more fitted for cursory perusal 
or recitation than for repeated and diligent study." 
This fact, rather than simply the fact that the 
[12] 



The New Testament Text 

manuscripts used by Erasmus were few and late, 
justified the preparation of the Revised Version 
to take the place of the King James, as giving 
more nearly the original words of the New Tes- 
tament writers. 

The second group, called the Alexandrian, is 
small and likewise a literary revision; it is of 
no great importance, and we need not stop to 
consider it. The third group is the one which 
Westcott & Hort considered the most authoritative, 
and on which they relied mainly for their text. 
They called it the Neutral group because they 
supposed it to have been less altered from the 
original text than any of the other three. Two 
famous manuscripts belong to this group, both 
written in the fourth century, and older than any 
others we possess except some small fragments. One 
is the Codex Sinaiticus, discovered by Tischendorf 
in 1859 at the convent of St. Catherine on Mount 
Sinai, and now in the Imperial Library at St. 
Petersburg. It contains the New Testament com- 
plete. The other is the Codex Vaticanus, so called 
because it is in the Vatican Library at Rome. It 
lacks the Epistle to the Hebrews after 9:14, the 
Pastoral Epistles, Philemon and the Apocalypse, 
Westcott & Hort believed that though the texts of 
these two manuscripts had a common ancestor, they 
descended from it along separate lines, and so in 
[13] 



New Testament Problems 

their agreement furnish strong evidence concern- 
ing a very early text. Accordingly they made 
these two manuscripts, especially the Vatican, the 
chief authority for their text, which is to a great 
extent the one followed in our Revised Version. 
But all scholars are not so sure that the two man- 
uscripts are thus independent of each other. It 
may be that one was copied from an immediate 
ancestor of the other or even directly from the 
other itself, in which case their agreements would 
be of little value toward determining the original 
text. 

There remains the fourth group, which has long 
borne the name of Western because its existing 
manuscripts were mainly written in the Western 
parts of Europe and Africa ; but there is evidence 
that the text they represent was current in the East 
as well as the West. The most famous manuscript 
of this group is the Codex Bezse, so called because 
it was given by Beza in 1581 to the University 
of Cambridge, which still owns it. It dates from 
the sixth century, and contains only the Gospels 
and Acts with a Latin version of them on each 
opposite page. It differs so remarkably from the 
majority of manuscripts that Beza thought it 
ought never to be published. For example, after 
Luke 6 : 4 there is inserted the following story of 
Christ, — " On the same day having seen one work- 
[14] 



The New Testament Text 

ing on the Sabbath, He said unto him, man, 
if indeed thou knowest what thou doest, thou art 
blessed; but if thou knowest not, thou art ac- 
cursed, and art a transgressor of the law.** This, 
as Dean Farrar points out, is too striking and 
intrinsically probable to be lightly rejected; it 
represents the spirit of Christ's teachings as under- 
stood by Paul, — whatever is not of faith is sin. 
Again, after Matt. 20 : 28 we have this addition 
to Christ's words about serving, — " But ye seek 
from little to increase, and from greater to be less.** 
This reminds us of James 1:9, — " Let the brother 
of low degree glory in his high estate, and the 
rich in that he is made low." Still again, after 
Acts 11 : 27, in which we are told that there came 
down prophets from Jerusalem to Antioch, the 
Codex Bezae reads, " And there was much gladness. 
And when we were assembled, one of them, named 
Agahus, spake and signified ** etc. If this reading 
could be accepted, the passage would be the first 
of the famous " we " sections in Acts, and would 
indicate that the writer was a member of the church 
in Antioch. Most of the readings peculiar to this 
manuscript are not as important as these, but are 
minor additions to the text, — Kttle comments, 
explanations, and the like. There are also note- 
worthy omissions, for example in the last chapter 
of Luke, where the marginal notes of our Revised 
[15] 



New Testament Fi^ohlems 

Version indicate them. If the Codex Bezse stood 
alone, we might regard it as simply a curiosity, 
showing the free way in which some copyist treated 
the usual text. But it is the oldest of a small but 
distinct group, the members of which all exhibit the 
same freedom in altering the text, though in doing 
so they by no means agree with one another. Their 
disagreements with one another are so marked that, 
as Kenyon says, " it is doubtful whether they can 
be referred to a single ancestor rather than to a 
tendency to laxity in transcription manifested in 
different places " (Criticism of the N. T. 59). 

Though the Western group of manuscripts was 
largely disregarded by Westcott & Hort, it has 
recently received more attention and favor; and 
the question of its origin and value is perhaps the 
chief problem in textual criticism to-day. The 
reason for this is the testimony of the versions and 
of the Fathers. The earliest translations of the 
New Testament were into Latin and Syriac, some- 
time in the second century. We know that before 
the time of Jerome there had been several Latin 
translations, and that it was the disagreements in 
them which caused him in 383 A. D. to begin the 
publication of his famous revision, the Vulgate, 
which henceforth became the accepted Latin text. 
Now these Old Latin versions, so far as we can 
determine from what remains of them and from 
[16] 



The New Testament Teoct 

quotations in the Latin Fathers, were all of the 
Western form of text. This would indicate that 
in the Western group we have a very early text. 
The same fact is shown by the Syriac versions, 
though the evidence has only recently been made 
certain. The standard Syriac translation, ex- 
tolled as " the queen of versions," is the Peshitta, 
which was generally used as early as the fifth 
century, and presents the Syrian form of text. 
Some scholars maintained that, like the Vulgate, 
it was a revision of earlier versions ; but there 
was no proof of this until in 1842 a part of a 
copy of the Gospels was discovered giving a differ- 
ent text. This manuscript, which is called the 
Curetonian from the scholar who edited it, was 
thought to give an earlier version, though some 
regarded it as merely a corruption of the Peshitta. 
In 1892 Mrs. Lewis discovered, in that convent on 
Mt. Sinai where sO' many treasures have been 
found, a Syriac palimpsest manuscript of the Gos- 
pels whose version is accepted as earlier than that 
of the Peshitta and possibly earlier than that of 
the Curetonian. It belongs, as does the Curetonian, 
to the Western group, and thus is a new proof 
that the group gives us a very early text. Like 
other members of this group it has its peculiar 
readings. Thus in Matt. 27 : 17 Pilate gives the 
people their choice between Jesus Barabbas and 
[17] 



A^^^ Testament Problems 

Jesus who is called the Christ. In John 11 : 39 
Martha objects, " Whi/ are they taking away the 
stone? " The most important variations are in 
the first chapter of Matthew, where in v. 16, it 
reads, " Jacob begat Joseph; Joseph {to whom 
was espoused the Virgin Mary) begat Jesus who 
is called the Christ,'' and in v. 21, " She shall bear 
thee a son," and in v. 25, " She bare him a son 
and he called His name, Jesus." Yet at the same 
time we find unchanged the other statements in 
the chapter which set forth the supernatural con- 
ception of Jesus. These variations have aroused 
much discussion in present theological debates con- 
cerning the virgin birth of Christ. The evident 
inconsistency of the text shows that it is in process 
of alteration. Those who deny the virgin birth 
say that the alterations were made in the interest 
of orthodoxy, i. e. the original text represented 
Jesus as the son of Joseph, and the statements 
about the supernatural conception were later addi- 
tions. But it is simpler to suppose that the reverse 
was the case, and that the changes were made under 
the influence of some such early heresy as the one 
which taught that Jesus was only a man until 
the Holy Ghost descended upon Him at baptism. 
It is remarkable in either case that such evident 
contradictions should be retained; we should have 
expected the reviser to make all the statements 
[18] 



The New Testament Text 

harmonious. Possibly lie considered they were har- 
monious ; if so, we must regard his words about 
Joseph's fatherhood as similar to those in Luke 
2:41,48. 

With such support from the Fathers and the 
earliest versions the Western group cannot be 
lightly set aside in our search for the original text. 
Dr. Kenyon declares, "It is not too much to' say 
that all the earliest writers who' quote the New 
Testament sufficiently to enable us to discover 
w^hat type of text they used, must have used man- 
uscripts of this character; and they are not con- 
fined to any single country." And Dr. Hort, 
though he does not consider the Codex Bezse a 
good authority, admits that it " presents a truer 
image of the form in which the Gospels and Acts 
were most widely read in the third and probably 
a great part of the second century, than any other 
extant Greek manuscript." 

What then is the conclusion.'^ Evidently this, — 
that in the second century there was nO' general 
uniformity among the manuscripts. If most of 
them were of the Western group, they did not 
agree even with one another; for disagreement is 
a characteristic of that group. Indeed, one German 
scholar, Blass, maintains that disagreements go 
back to the very autographs ; and that Luke, for 
example, prepared two copies of Acts, the first a 
[19] 



New Testament Problems 

rough draft, to which the Codex Bezse corresponds, 
and the second a corrected and less proHx copy, — 
the one he sent to Theophilus, — represented by 
the Codex Vaticanus. This opinion has not gained 
acceptance, though some of the statements pecuhar 
to the Codex Bezas do seem to be those of an eye- 
witness. Undoubtedly in the early days of the 
church no special endeavor was made to secure 
accurate copies of the New Testament books. The 
need was not felt. Christians were expecting the 
return of their Lord at any time, and their thoughts 
were turned to the future rather than to the past. 
The copying was done by men of no great scholar- 
ship, who had neither the opportunity nor the 
inclination to compare manuscripts and thus cor- 
rect errors. The most carefully prepared man- 
uscripts would be those intended for use in the 
churches ; but these were the ones most easily 
discovered and destroyed in any time of persecu- 
tion. Really the marvel is that the early manu- 
scripts were as accurate as they seem to have been. 
There was one place where conditions were more 
favorable, and that was Alexandria. This city, 
which long was preeminent as a centre of learning, 
had at the end of the second century a flourishing 
Christian school of theology presided over by Clem- 
ent and afterwards by Origen. Here, if anywhere, 
there would be men with the ability and opportunity 
[20] 



The New Testament Teoct 

to secure a correct text, and with the inchnation to 
do so. There is reason to connect the Neutral text 
with Alexandria, and to believe that it represents 
the best text that could be secured at the end of 
the second century. But to go further and declare 
that it gives us exactly the original text, seems 
unwarranted by the facts. And while we never 
can predict what may not be brought out from 
the timeless sands of Egypt, there is little hope 
of ever securing that original text. There was no 
reason why the autograph manuscripts should be 
carefully preserved, for no special sanctity at- 
tached to them ; and being of papyrus they would 
soon wear out or crumble if not treated with special 
care. Moreover, if we actually had an autograph 
manuscript, we could not be sure that no slips of 
the hasty pen of the writer had taken place to mar 
its accuracy. A perfect text must remain the dream 
of the scholar or the delusion of the ignorant. 

When we thus abandon the hope of securing 
a perfect text, and especially when we learn that 
the number of variations in existing manuscripts 
is roughly reckoned to be 200,000, we are tempted 
to despair of knowing what the original contents 
of the New Testament were. But this is a needless 
alarm. The vast amount of variations arises from 
the great number of existing manuscripts. If, as 
is the case with many of the classics and practically 

[21] 



New Testament Problems 

with the Old Testament, we had to depend upon 
one late manuscript, there would be no variations 
to disturb us ; but on the other hand there would 
be no way except pure conjecture to determine 
whether we had a correct text. The cause of our 
trouble is also the remedy for it. Then, too, the 
magnitude of the number of variations is deceptive, 
because it is reached by taking some one manuscript 
as a standard and counting each variation from 
this as many times as there are other manuscripts 
in which it appears. Every new manuscript, there- 
fore, though it may give no new variations, in- 
creases the number. And especially we must bear 
in mind the fact that only " a very small propor- 
tion of the variations materially aifects the sense, 
a much smaller proportion is really important, and 
no variation affects an article of faith or a moral 
precept" (Vincent). This was finely illustrated 
by the Revised Version. When it first appeared, 
some persons who were not inclined to accept the 
teachings of the King James version hastened to 
examine it, hoping to find matters more to their 
taste. But though there was scarcely a verse that 
did not show some slight change, and though a few 
passages had been wholly omitted, it was the same 
New Testament after all. V^^e had lost the angel 
troubling the pool of Bethesda, and we were not 
sorry to lose him. We had to give up I. John 5 : 7 
[22] 



The Ending of Mark 

as a proof-text for the doctrine of the Trinity, — 
and a very convenient text it was, too; but there 
remained texts in abundance that could be used 
in support of the doctrine. There was only one 
thing that had to be hopelessly abandoned, namel}^, 
any interpretation of Scripture which hinges upon 
the precise form of a particular word, finding deep- 
est significance in the use of an aorist instead of 
an imperfect tense, and in the presence or absence 
of the Greek article. Tliis kind of exegesis, at 
least in its extreme form, is no longer possible ; 
and I think we all feel that its passing is not to be 
deplored. 



In connection with omissions in the revised text, 
it is worth while to notice the closing verses of the 
Gospel of Mark. Scholars have long doubted 
whether the last twelve verses of that Gospel were 
a part of the original text. The oldest manu- 
scripts, — the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex 
Sinaiticus, — break off abruptly with the words, 
"for they were afraid" (Mark 12:8); and so 
does the Syriac palimpsest discovered by Mrs. 
Lewis. Most of the existing manuscripts, how- 
ever, have the ending with which we are familiar; 
so the Revised Version has retained it, with a 
[23] 



New Testament Problems 

marginal note calling attention to its doubtful 
genuineness. A few manuscripts have another and 
much shorter ending, about as follows, — " And 
they reported briefly to Peter and those in his 
company all the things commanded. After these 
things Jesus Himself also sent forth through them 
from the East even to the West the holy and in- 
corruptible message of eternal salvation.'' That 
neither of these endings was the original one, is 
now generally agreed. Both of them seem to be 
later compositions added to complete what would 
otherwise be an unfinished book. Why the book 
was thus imperfect, we can only surmise. One 
conjecture is that some interruption, possibly even 
his death, prevented Mark from completing his 
work; and so it was sent forth in the state he 
left it. But this seems hardly probable, especially 
since the book was so nearly completed. Another 
conjecture is that the original ending contained 
matters not acceptable to the church later on ; and 
so it was removed and a substitute put in its place. 
But why is all trace of the original ending lost, 
and why have some manuscripts no ending at oW.? 
It seems more likely that an early manuscript, 
which had become the only one, was by hard usage 
or accident mutilated, and thus the original ending 
was hopelessly lost. We know that Mark was less 
read and prized by the early church, because it 
[24] 



The Ending of Mark 

was shorter than Matthew and Luke, and con- 
tained practically nothing which could not be 
found in them. A Christian who could afford to 
have but one Gospel would prefer a larger one that 
gave the sayings as well as the deeds of his Master ; 
and if in the stress of persecution he was called 
upon to surrender his sacred books, he would more 
willingly part with Mark than with another Gospel. 
It is not impossible, therefore, that the book did 
come so near totally disappearing that one leaf 
actually was forever lost. But this is only con- 
jecture. The ending with which we are familiar, 
the longer one, bears indications of having been 
composed by some one who drew his facts from 
the other Gospels but fashioned their statement 
under the influence of post-apostolic ideas. The 
words attributed to Christ, " He that believeth and 
is baptized shall be saved," though they join belief 
and baptism according to apostolic practice, appar- 
ently put baptism on an equality with belief as 
indispensable for salvation, and thus show the in- 
cipient stage of that later emphasis of the sacra- 
ment which ascribed to it a magical virtue. And 
the signs that shall accompany them that believe, — 
" In my name shall they cast out demons ; they 
shall speak with new tongues ; they shall take 
up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, 
it shaU in no wise hurt them ; they shall lay hands 
[25] 



New Testament Problems 

on the sick, and they shall recover," — these signs 
not only seem to be a reminiscence of certain apos- 
tolic miracles (Paul and the viper, for example), 
but also show the tendency, which later on became 
strong, to regard miracles as mere marvels, — 
wonders with no spiritual content. They have 
often been pointed to by men who professed to 
work miracles, and would have us simply for that 
reason accept their claims to be messengers from 
God. I am glad that the verses can be set aside 
as spurious ; and I regret that they were not 
omitted from the Revised Version. But who wrote 
them.'^ This question, which seems a hopeless one, 
unexpectedly received a possible answer when Cony- 
beare in 1891 found an Armenian manuscript of 
the Gospels, written 986 A. D., in which these 
twelve verses of ]\Iark are separated from the rest 
by a space and some flourishes, and bear the head- 
ing, " Of the presbyter Ariston.'* There was an 
Aristion who is mentioned along with a presbyter 
John by Papias, a writer of the second century, 
as one of the persons from whom he gained infor- 
mation about the Lord. The presbyter John is 
the person often advocated as the author of the 
Fourth Gospel by scholars who deny the author- 
ship of the Apostle John. And though we may not 
be willing to agree with them on that point, it 
is easier to allow that Aristion may have been the 
[26] 



The New Testament Language 

writer who in the early part of the second century 
prepared the longer ending, of the Gospel of Mark. 
The shorter ending seems to have originated even 
later, and to be a very modest attempt to give 
the book a proper conclusion. 



VI. 



While recent explorations have not given us any 
important manuscript of the Greek New Testament, 
a flood of light has been cast upon the language 
of the New Testament by the unearthing in Egypt 
of a great mass of papyrus documents of the first 
century. Hitherto there has been much dispute 
about that language. One theory regarded it as 
a kind of sacred language based upon the Greek 
in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. 
Another theory explained it as the language of 
Jews who, having learned Greek in manhood, still 
did their thinking in x\ramaic, and wrote Greek 
much as men spoke French " after the scole of 
Stratford atte Bowe." A third theory maintained 
that it was simply the common Greek of the first 
century, — the every -day language of the Greek • 
using people around the Mediterranean. This third 
theory was not easy to prove or disprove, because 
little remained to show what was the common 
[27] 



New Testament Problems 

Greek of that da}^ There were plenty of inscrip- 
tions ; but the language put upon a monument 
is generally not that of ordinary speech. There 
were also' books of that age ; but who could say 
whether the writers were using the vernacular or 
were imitating the Athenian classics which were 
held up as models of literary style? These recent 
finds in Egypt have given us quantities of material 
from which to ascertain the common Greek. Here 
are not only census reports, receipts, wills and 
such official documents, but also family letters and 
business correspondence and the like, in which men 
write exactly as they speak. An examination of 
these papyri reveals the interesting fact that the 
Greek of the first century was practically the same 
in all the lands where it was spoken. Dialectic 
differences had disappeared as fully as they have 
in English-speaking lands to-day. St. Paul 
could preach in the common Greek anywhere around 
the Mediterranean, and be readily understood. 
And what is still more interesting, we learn that 
Paul and the others in their writings used this 
common Greek in the ordinary fashion. Words 
and phrases and constructions that had been sup- 
posed to be peculiar to the New Testament are 
found repeatedly in these papyri, and are evi- 
dently of the vernacular. The Apostles wrote as 
they spoke, and they spoke exactly as other men 
[28] 



The New Testament Language 

of their day. And this fact, by the way, seems 
to settle the question as to whether Palestine was 
a bilingual country ; for how could these men have 
used the common Greek so naturally unless they 
learned it in childhood along with Aramaic? 
Deissmann and others are exploring the great 
field thus recently opened; and their labors must 
bear much fruit, not only in the grammar and 
lexicography of the New Testament, but even in 
its theology. If terms which we supposed to be 
technical and purely theological, are found to be 
also colloquial, the}^ must be interpreted in the 
light of their ordinary use. The sacred writers 
may have put new meaning into them, but the 
ordinary meaning forms the starting-point for any 
interpretation of them. The Epistles become much 
more simple and natural letters when we learn 
that their authors wrote in the customary fashion 
of their time. As Dr. Moulton remarks, " It gives 
us a curious sensation to find in letters from 
heathens to heathens Pauline and Johannine phrases 
in which we should never have imagined that the 
apostle was merely galvanizing into life an old 
formula. ' I salute all the friends by name.' ' I 
make my prayer for you daily before the Lord 
Serapis,' ' making mention of you before the gods,' 
' day and night I make supplication to the god 
on your behalf,' ' before all things I pray that 
[29] 



New Testament Problems 

jou may be in health,' — these and other phrases 
in papyrus letters give a curious new light when 
we look into the Epistles of the New Testament, 
and find their analogues there " {Biblical World, 
March, 1902). To take this new light and use it 
in the interpretation of the Epistles is one work 
which lies before the scholars of to-day. 



VII. 



After this brief survey of the Lower or Textual 
Criticism we turn to the companion field of the 
Higher Criticism. The problems here are more 
numerous and complex, and all we can do is briefly 
to point out some of them, — following the order 
of the books, — and indicate what the scholars are 
doing with them. 

The Gospels are the most important of all the 
New Testament writings ; and the amount of study 
that is being spent upon them, and the multitude 
of books appearing upon various topics connected 
with them, can hardly be realized by one whose 
attention has not been specially turned in this 
direction. The life of Christ still remains the 
greatest subject for Christian study; and though 
excellent books have been written upon it, the one 
that shall fully satisfy our desires has not yet 
[ 30 ] 



The Life and Words of Christ 

appeared. It is easy to lay down the qualifications 
its writer must possess, — profound scholarship, 
freedom from prejudice and theorizing, a clear and 
attractive literary style, and above all such sym- 
pathy both with the Master and with Christian 
thought as shall enable him to enter into the heart 
of his subject and set it forth with spiritual power. 
But who is sufficient for these things? Personally 
I am w^aiting with much expectation the Life of 
Christ promised by Dr. Sanday. His previous 
work along various lines of New Testament study, 
and especially his article on Jesus Christ in Has- 
tings' Bible Dictionary, justify the hope that his 
book will be a classic. 

The most popular topic at the present hour is 
the teachings of Christ. This is being studied from 
ever}^ possible point of view in Germany, England, 
and America, and books upon it multiply with 
bewildering rapidity. Critical thought in very 
recent years has passed on from the question, 
What manner of man was Jesus ? to the companion 
question. What were the truths He taught .^ And, 
though the fact seems surprising, this is largely 
a new question. The situation in regard to the 
teachings of Christ is now much the same as was 
the situation in regard to His life two generations 
ago. Men then were just beginning to realize 
that though they were familiar with the story of 
[31] 



New Testament Problems 

the Gospels, no careful interpretation of that story, 
and no critical history of the life of Christ in the 
light of His surroundings and opportunities had 
been undertaken. In like manner we are rousing 
to the fact that, though we have long been familiar 
with the words of Christ and have held them 
unspeakably precious, they have not been given 
the patient, comprehensive, scholarly study they 
deserve. Our theology has been based upon Paul, 
not upon his Master ; and we have hardly attempted 
to set forth in systematic form the teachings of 
Christ, and draw the conclusions that would crown 
such an attempt. Now at last we have wakened 
to the importance of the work ; and beyond ques- 
tion its results will be most valuable for Christian 
thought and life. 

VIII. 

A MOST intricate yet fascinating question is the 
origin of our four Gospels. The first three, — the 
Synoptics, — present one problem ; the fourth 
presents another and quite different one. The 
Synoptic Problem is this : — Why is it that these 
three books are so remarkably alike, telling the 
same story (which is with all its details only a 
small part of Christ's public ministry) in the same 
manner and often in the same words, — and yet 
[32] 



The Synoptic Problem 

are so full of variations from one another? In 
some way the books must be connected in their 
origin, but how? It is not a new problem. St. 
Augustine recognized it and attempted a solution 
of it; but it still calls forth the study of a host 
of scholars. Various solutions are proposed. The 
one which satisfied St. Augustine is that of mutual 
dependence, viz. after the first Gospel (whichever 
that may have been) was written, the author of 
the second copied it more or less accurately with 
such omissions or additions as seemed advisable, 
and the author of the third made similar use of 
one or both of the other two. Another solution is 
that there was an original document (perhaps 
more than one) now lost, which was used by all 
three evangelists as the basis of their work. A 
third is that the gospel story had been told orally 
so often before it was v/ritten down that it had 
assumed a stereotyped form, and this form gave 
rise to the resemblances in our three Gospels. With- 
out discussing any of these we may notice more 
in detail the " two-document " theory which is just 
now most popular. It is based upon statements 
of Papias, who wrote not long before the middle 
of the second century, and who is quoted by Euse- 
bius in his great book on church history. Papias 
said that " Mark, having become the interpreter of 
Peter, wrote down accurately, though not indeed 
[33] 



New Testament Problems 

in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things 
said or done hy Christ,'' and that *' Matthew wrote 
the Logia in the Hebrew language, and each one 
interpreted [or translated] them as best he 
could.'' According to this statement Mark's book 
would be the story of Christ's life as Peter used 
to tell it for evangelistic purposes, — a story, there- 
fore, in which the longer and deeper discourses of 
Christ would be omitted, as not suited to a popular 
audience, and emphasis would be placed upon the 
deeds and the brief but striking sayings of Jesus, 
while a large place would be given to the closing 
scenes of His life. It would be very much such 
a book as our Gospel of Mark, though in its 
original form it may not have been altogether 
identical with that Gospel. The word " Logia " 
may be translated in various ways, but its most 
probable meaning is oracles or sayings. We can 
readily believe that Matthew, who from his train- 
ing would be the ready penman of the Twelve, wrote 
down in Aramaic, — the language in which they 
were spoken, — the sayings and discourses of Jesus, 
either with or without brief introductions telling 
the circumstances under which they were uttered. 
These two books, according to the " two-document " 
theory, were the sources of the Synoptic Gospels. 
Our Gospel of Mark is practically that story told by 
Peter and written out by Mark after Peter's death. 
[34] 



The Synoptic Problem 

Luke, if he was the author of our third Gospel, 
took the book of Mark and the Logia, along with 
other documents or information which he had col- 
lected, and wove them together after the manner 
of a careful historian, endeavoring to place the 
sayings of Jesus in their original connection with 
His deeds. The preface to his book casts light 
upon the character of his work. About the same 
time some unknown writer also took Mark's book, 
which with some literary improvements and changes 
in its order he used almost in its entirety, and the 
Logia, which he preferred to insert in large sections 
instead of following Luke's plan of breaking it up ; 
and with these and some other material he composed 
our first Gospel. It bears the name of Matthew, 
because it was considered to be a reproduction and 
enlargement of Matthew's Logia. Thus we have 
our three Gospels ; and the date of their composi- 
tion is put by nearly universal agreement some- 
where between 60 A. D. and 100 A. D. This theory 
does not solve all the difficulties of the Synoptic 
Problem, and various modifications of it are accord- 
ingly proposed; but its general features have 
gained much acceptance. One result is that Mark 
must be considered to be the earliest of our Gospels, 
and the one in which we get back most nearly to 
the story of Jesus as the Apostles used to tell it 
on their preaching tours. Mark, therefore, is 
[35] 



New Testament Problems 

studied with far more interest than in former days 
when it was supposed to be simply an abridgment 
of Matthew. Another result is that scholars are 
most eager to ascertain the original form of the 
Logia, — that precious note-book of Jesus' sayings. 
Their endeavor, of course, is to reconstruct it from 
the two Gospels in which it was incorporated ; but 
possibly some manuscript may yet be found giving 
it independently. A little papyrus leaf of sayings 
of Jesus was discovered in Egypt in 1896, and 
was evidently part of a book (the page was num- 
bered) which may have been some such collection of 
Logia. Who knows what the next turn of the 
spade may disclose! 



IX. 



The problem presented by the fourth Gospel, — 
the Johannine Problem, — is almost the exact oppo- 
site of the one we have been considering. It is this, 
Why is this Gospel so unlike the other three .^ There 
are evident differences in regard to the apparent 
length of Christ's public ministry, the time when 
it began, the place in which it was mainly carried 
on, the measure of favor it met with, and the 
characters who were prominent in it. The explan- 
ation of these is not difficult if, — as tradition 
agrees, — John was written after the other Gospels, 
[36] 



The Johannine Problem 

and as a supplement to them. There was no reason 
why the story already told should be repeated ; 
and any Harmony of the Gospels shows how readily 
John's story can be made to fit in with that of the 
Synoptics. The really difficult part of the problem 
is this, — Why are the person and teachings of 
Christ in John so' unlike what we have in the other 
Gospels ? Notice some of the differences : 

In the Synoptics Jesus is reticent concerning 
His divinity, — He will not allow even the de- 
moniacs to declare Him the Son of God, and His 
own favorite title is The Son of Man ; in John He 
emphasizes His divinity continually, — even the 
Baptist bears witness that He is the Son of God^ 
and His own favorite title is The Son to whom God 
is The Father. 

In the Synoptics He does not announce His 
Messiahship until the latter part of His ministry, 
and rejoices when His disciples at length discover 
it ; in John it is publicly proclaimed by Himself 
and others from the very outset of His ministry. 

In the Synoptics the great theme of His preach- 
ing is the Kingdom of God; in John, except in 
the conversation with Nicodemus, it is never men- 
tioned. 

In the Synoptics He teaches repeatedly by para- 
bles ; in Jolin there are no parables, — only a few 
allegories. 

[37] 



New Testament Problems 

In the Synoptics His words are brief, pregnant 
sayings, or groups of sayings loosely connected, 
as in the Sermon on the Mount ; in John there are 
long and elaborated discourses on definite themes, 
e. g. the Bread of Life and the Coming of the 
Comforter. 

The style of His utterances in John is unlike 
that in the Synoptics, and the keywords, — " light, 
darkness, life, death, the world, witness, love " etc., 
are new; but both style and keywords are the 
same as those of John himself as shown in the 
Epistle. In fact it is not easy to distinguish in 
the Gospel the words of Christ from the words 
of John, so that commentators are still uncertain 
whether such a saying as John 3 : 16, — " God so 
loved the world " etc., — should be assigned to 
Jesus or to the evangelist. 

These and similar features make many scholars 
dubious about the Fourth Gospel. They are not 
so ready as formerly to pronounce it a late and 
worthless fabrication. All but the most extreme 
critics put its date at the latest not much beyond 
100 A. D., and ascribe its authorship, if not to 
John himself, to one of his immediate disciples 
who gained his information from the Apostle. 
But how to explain its difference from the Synop- 
tics, especially in regard to the teachings and self- 
proclamation of Christ, remains a serious problem. 
[38] 



The Johannine Problem 

That the work in Judea was unhke that in Gahlee 
is not a sufficient explanation, for according to 
John Christ taught in the synagogue at Capernaum 
exactly the same as He did in Jerusalem. The 
most common solution of the problem is that John's 
picture of Jesus stands to the picture in the Synop- 
tics as a masterly portrait does to a photograph. 
John was the youngest of the Twelve, the one whom 
Jesus cherished as a younger brother, and who 
entered most sympathetically into His thought. 
The Gospel was the work of his old age after 
years of Christian experience and meditation had 
made increasingly clear to him the meaning of 
Christ's words and deeds. It was written to meet 
the growing discussions concerning the real nature 
of Christ ; and its definite purpose, indicated in 
the prologue, is expresslj?" stated in the close of 
the book, — " Many other signs, therefore, did 
Jesus in the presence of the disciples which are 
not written in tliis book ; but these are written that 
ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God, and that believing ye may have life in His 
name" (20:30-31). We have, it has well been 
said, in the Synoptics a picture of Jesus as the 
world saw Him, but in John a picture of Jesus 
as the world might have seen Him had men been 
in heart and life prepared to see. The evangelist 
evidently gives us the teachings of Jesus in his 
[39] 



New Testament Problems 

own style and words. He has aimed to act as an 
interpreter rather than simply as a reporter. How 
far his interpretation is correct remains a matter 
of dispute in which personal prejudice has far too 
much to do with conclusions. I notice that many 
of the recent books on the teachings of Jesus con- 
fine themselves to material found in the Synoptics, 
ignoring John. This may be simply from the 
desire to avoid disputed ground, or it may be from 
the belief that the teachings in John are not gen- 
uine. But Wendt in his great work on the subject 
devotes much space to showing that the teachings 
of Jesus, though their form may differ, are really 
the same in substance in all four Gospels ; and his 
conclusion concerning the record in John is that 
it was given by " a disciple of Jesus who was more 
deeply penetrated than the rest with the original 
spirit and the inward form of the teachings of 
his Master." Such testimony is valuable; but 
after all, the strongest proof that the Christ of 
the first three Gospels is the same as the Christ 
of John, is the indisputable fact that the heart and 
thought of the Christian Church throughout the 
centuries have never been conscious of any differ- 
ence, save that in John there is found a fuller 
revelation of the divine side of the Godman, 



[40] 



The Book of Acts 



X. 



Acts is a book whose credibility will always be 
assailed by two classes of critics, — those who reject 
miracles and must, therefore, explain away any 
record of them, and those who hold theories con- 
cerning the origin of the Christian Church that do 
not agree with the statements in this first book 
of church history. All such are bound to maintain 
that Acts is a late production which, though it 
may incorporate documents of value, as, for ex- 
ample, the travel diary of Luke, gives a distorted, 
legendary, and largely worthless account of the 
Apostolic Age. If their opinion is correct, they 
ought to have Kttle difficulty in proving its correct- 
ness beyond dispute. For no history offers more 
abundant opportunities to test its accuracy than 
does the Book of Acts. Consider the variety of 
scene and circumstance with which the author had 
to deal. As Rackham in his recent commentary 
points out, " The ground covered reached from 
Jerusalem to Rome, taking in Syria, Asia Minor, 
Greece and Italy. In that field were comprised all 
manner of populations, civilizations, administra- 
tions, — Jewish and Oriental life. Western civili- 
zation, great capitals like Antioch and Ephesus, 
Roman colonies, independent towns, Greek cities, 
[41] 



New Testament Problems 

barbarian country districts. The history covers a 
period of thirty years which witnessed in many 
parts great pohtical changes. Provinces Hke 
C3^prus and Achaia were being exchanged between 
the emperor and the senate ; parts of Asia IMinor. 
e. g. Pisidia and Lycaonia, were undergoing a 
process of annexation and Latinization ; Judea 
itself was now a Roman province under a procura- 
tor, now an independent state under an Herodian 
king." If Acts was written long after the events 
it describes, and by an author who drew mainly 
upon his imagination for his facts, it could not fail 
to reveal this by evident inaccuracies and anachro- 
nisms. No writer of the second century, dealing 
with so wide and varied a field, could avoid them; 
and our present abundant knowledge of the field, 
gained from contemporary literature and constant 
discovery of monumental remains, would make his 
blunders increasingly manifest. That the book has 
stood the test triumphantly is the best proof of 
its credibility. 

All recent discoveries have only confirmed our 
confidence in the accuracy of the statements in Acts. 
Take a single example out of many. Saul and 
Barnabas, on their first missionary journey, some- 
where about 45—50 A. D., are said to have met in 
Cyprus the governor of the island, Sergius Paulus, 
who is called a proconsul. This governor is not 
[42] 



The Booh of Acts 

mentioned in any history of Cyprus ; and in the 
second century the island was an imperial province 
and therefore governed by a propraetor and not by 
a proconsul. But we learn from coins and inscrip- 
tions and one of the old historians that in the 
first century the island was under the senate and 
so had a proconsul. And some years ago Cesnola 
discovered an inscription in Cyprus, probably of 
the date 55 A. D., which mentions an event as 
having taken place a few years before " in the 
time of the proconsul Paulus." Evidently here 
we have the man who sought to hear the word of 
God from Barnabas and Saul. Dr. Ramsay, who 
has done much in Asia Minor and elsewhere to 
trace the early history of Christianity in the light 
of archseological evidence, says that he himself 
began the study of Acts with a strong prejudice 
against its credibility, and with the belief that the 
Tubingen theory, viz. that it is a late piece of 
historical fiction, was correct; but his investiga- 
tions have convinced him that for accuracy of state- 
ment, grasp of his subject, and ability to set it 
forth in the clearest way, the author of Acts is 
an historian of the very first rank, the equal of 
Thucydides. Such a conclusion carries with it 
more than the credibilit}^ of Acts ; it greatly in- 
creases our confidence in the Gospel of Luke. For 
all critics agree that the man who wrote Acts was 
[43] 



New Testament Problems 

also the writer of the Third Gospel; everything 
about the two books, — their language, style, 
manner of treating a topic, as well as the common 
dedication to Theophilus, — indicates this. And 
if the author of Acts is an historian of such ac- 
curacy and ability, we may rest assured that in 
his life of Jesus we have a work deserving our 
highest confidence. 

The question still remains unsettled as to how far 
the writer of Acts made use of earlier documents 
in preparing his book. It seems probable that for 
the first part of the work he may have had some 
sketch of the events it describes ; the method he 
is supposed to have followed in writing the Gospel 
would strengthen this opinion. But to hold that 
the " we " passages in the latter part of the book 
{i. e. the passages in which he uses the first person 
plural in his narrative) are from a separate docu- 
ment instead of being the personal experiences of 
the author, is far more difficult. There is nothing 
in style or vocabulary to distinguish them from 
their context, and we may be sure that a writer of 
such literary ability would not have inserted them 
without obviating the awkward change of persons. 
There is little reason to doubt that the use of the 
first person was intentional, to denote those por- 
tions of the narrative where the author is speaking 
as an eyewitness ; and this conclusion agrees with 
[M] 



The Book of Acts 

the fact that those portions are more minute and 
vivid in details than the rest. If, then, the writer 
was one of Paul's companions, it makes no great 
difference which one; but a process of elimination 
among them indicates Luke, " the beloved physi- 
cian," and the knowledge displayed in the use of 
medical terms is said to confirm this early tradition. 
Nor is the date of the book of vital importance 
when the authorship has thus been settled. Some 
still hold that its abrupt termination proves it to 
have been written while Paul was at Rome in prison, 
and before the result of his appeal to Csesar was 
known. Others believe that it was written later; 
and they explain its silence about Paul's last days 
as due either to Luke's intention to write a third 
book continuing the history, or to his belief that 
when he had brought the Apostle to bhe central city 
of the world he had finished the record which was 
suggested by Acts 1 : 8, or to the necessity for 
silence concerning the later hostility of Rome 
towards the Christians.. Various dates, therefore, 
are suggested for the composition of the book, 
ranging all the way from about 60 A. D. to near 
the close of the century. In deciding upon a date 
we have to bear in mind that the Gospel of Luke 
was written before, but probably not long before, 
the Book of Acts. 

[45] 



New Testament Problems 



XI. 



The Epistles of Paul, as is well known, have been 
the subject of a long and bitter controversy. About 
the middle of the last century the Tubingen School 
declared with great positiveness that only four of 
them, viz. Galatians, I. and II. Corinthians, and 
Romans, could be accepted as genuine ; and it pro- 
ceeded to reconstruct the life of Paul and all the 
early church history upon this basis. From that 
time until the present the arguments for and against 
Paul's authorship have been hotly discussed. With 
the " exception of one small group of critics, who 
must be described separately, scholars have finally 
abandoned the Tubingen position, and have come 
to a practically unanimous acceptance of the gen- 
uineness of all except the Pastoral Epistles. There 
is still some dispute concerning Ephesians and 
II. Thessalonians ; but if Colossians and I. Thessalo- 
nians are recognized as genuine, there seems no good 
reason why these two, which so closely resemble 
them, should be rejected. 

A new theory concerning Galatians has been 
stoutly advocated by Ramsay, and has met with 
considerable favor, viz. that this epistle instead of 
being addressed to churches in the centre of Asia 
Minor, about whose founding we know practically 
[46] 



The Pauline Epistles 

nothing, was addressed to the churches of Antioch, 
Iconium and other cities visited by Paul in his 
first missionary journey. This is called the South 
Galatian theory, and is based on the fact that while 
Galatia Proper was simply the region in central 
Asia IMinor, the Roman Province of Galatia in 
Paul's day included these southern cities, so that 
Christians in them might properly be called Gala- 
tians. If the theory is adopted, we may consider 
the Epistle as possibly the very first of Paul's 
extant writings, and we must shape our conception 
of its readers and of the circumstances that called 
it forth by what we know of the history of these 
southern churches ; but this will not materially 
change our interpretation of its contents. Another 
question still unsettled is whether Philippians should 
be reckoned the earliest or the latest of the four 
epistles written by Paul from Rome during his 
captivity. This, too, is of no great importance 
except as it affects our conception of the progress 
of events in that captivity. Generally the arrange- 
ment of the epistles according to the order in which 
they were written has not been changed from the 
one with which we are familiar, mz. I. and II.Thess., 
Gal., I. and II. Cor., Rom., Col., Phile., Eph., and 
Phil. The exact date of each epistle cannot be 
determined because the chronology of the Apos- 
tolic Age is yet, and probably always will be, un- 
[47] 



New Testament Problems 

settled. The recent tendency is to push back a 
little the time of Paul's arrival in Rome, placing it 
before the year 60 A. D. instead of after, and to 
assign correspondingly earlier dates to his epistles. 
The Pastoral Epistles remain a subject of dis- 
pute. The chief arguments against their gen- 
uineness are the difficulty of fitting them into any 
scheme of Paul's life, their difference in style and 
tone from the rest of his letters, and the developed 
condition of church government and thought they 
indicate. Many scholars pronounce them spurious. 
Others would explain them as enlargements of 
brief notes written by Paul on different occasions 
before he went to Rome, — these notes having been 
worked over and adapted to the later condition 
of the church by some unknown writer. Others 
are still holding the old view that they are genuine, 
and were written after Paul's release from the first 
Roman imprisonment. The objections to thieir 
genuineness are answered by pointing out that we 
know too little about Paul's last days to affirm 
there was no opportunity for him to write them, 
that letters of this kind and written at some interv^al 
after the others might be expected to differ from 
the rest, and that church government and life may 
have developed more rapidly than we suppose, or 
more rapidly in one place than in another. The 
adoption of the earher dates for other events in 
[48] 



The Pauline Epistles 

Paul's life allows more time for these last letters, 
and thus strengthens the argument for their gen- 
uineness. But if the argument is not wholly satis- 
factory, we need not be greatly distressed; for 
those who deny Paul's authorship are ready to 
recognize the historical importance of the Pastoral 
Epistles as early church documents, and also their 
great spiritual value which justly entitles them 
to a place in the New Testament. 

In the statement that the Tubingen position was 
universally abandoned, exception was made of one 
small group of critics who just at the present 
moment are exciting attention. This may be called 
the Dutch school, though it has representatives 
in Germany and America ; and its position can 
be learned from the articles on Paul and Romans 
by van Manen in the Encyclopaedia Biblica. It 
asserts that no one of Paul's letters, — not even 
the four which have been universally accepted as 
genuine, — was written by him, that they are not 
letters at all but treatises composed in the form of 
letters long after Paul's death, and that the doc- 
trines they set forth did not originate until after 
the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D. The 
Epistle to the Romans, for example, is a compila- 
tion of heterogeneous material, made in the first 
half of the second century ; and the only reason 
why it has been accepted as genuine is because 
[49] 



New Testament Problems 

no one has ever thought to examine carefully its 
credentials. Concerning the real Paul the Dutch 
school says we know very little, for legend has been 
busy with his history and the account in Acts is 
largely worthless. Apparently his ideas were the 
same as those of his fellow Apostles, and his Chris- 
tianity was of the prevalent Jewish type. Paul- 
inism, as we find it in the epistles, arose among 
so-called heretics, and the epistles were first re- 
garded as sacred writings by the Gnostics. This 
Dutch school is evidently even more revolutionary 
than the Tiibingen school ; in fact, it criticizes that 
school for stopping midwaj^- in the work of de- 
struction. How much influence it is going to have, 
time alone can show. Probably such sweeping 
denial of all the facts that sober scholarship regards 
as most fully established, will be treated as one of 
the wild vagaries which appear from time to time 
and are of no importance except as they bring the 
Higher Criticism into disrepute. But possibly it 
will have to be reckoned with seriously, and may 
give the impulse to a new investigation of the whole 
question of Paul's relation to the epistles that bear 
his name. Judging from the past we need not 
be doubtful about the results of such investigation. 



[50] 



The Epistle to the Hebrews 



XII. 

The authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
remains the enigma it has been for seventeen hun- 
dred years. As far back as the close of the second 
century Clement and Origen and Tertullian were 
discussing it, and were agreed only upon the fact 
that Paul was not the author. Clement thought 
that Luke TVTote Hebrews under Paul's direction. 
Tertullian was confident that its author was Bar- 
nabas. While Origen expressed what has been the 
general opinion ever since, " Who wrote the epistle, 
in truth, God knows." Luther, as is well known, 
ventured the plausible conjecture that it was the 
work of Apollos, the Alexandrian Jew, " mighty in 
the Scriptures." And Hamack has recently put 
forth the still more fascinating guess that the 
author was none other than that able, independent, 
and most energetic woman, Priscilla. This ought 
tO' meet with much favor in certain circles where 
Paul's injunction that women should not teach but 
are to learn from their husbands at home, has been 
a standing grievance. When discussion waxes hot 
over the authorship of some other book in the 
New Testament, it is well for us to bear in mind 
that here is one whose place in the sacred list re- 
mains secure though its author is confessedly 
[51] 



New Testament Problems 

altogether unknown. The destination of the book 
is as obscure as its source. It Tvas evidently written 
to some particular church ; and those who are 
fond of paradoxes like to maintain that the church 
was made up of Gentiles and not of Hebrews. They 
would suggest some church in Italy, and that the 
salutation with which the epistle closes, " They of 
Italy salute you," was from its absent members 
to their friends at home. But certainly the whole 
argument of the book, viz. that Christianity is the 
glorious consummation of the Old Testament revela- 
tion, and that those who turn back from it to 
Judaism forsake the better for the worse, — pre- 
supposes that the readers have once accepted the 
Jewish religion, and are still susceptible to its 
attractions. Even to-day a person who is not fa- 
miKar with the Old Testament and acquainted with 
the temple ceremonies, finds much of Hebrews un- 
interesting and unprofitable, — which is probably 
the reason why it is not more read. The date of 
the book depends somewhat upon its destination. 
If the epistle was to some church in Palestine, 
though outside of Jerusalem (Bartlet suggests 
Caesarea), a date in the decade before the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem would be most probable, for just 
at that time the enthusiasm aroused by the comple- 
tion of Herod's temple after its many years of 
building, the outburst of patriotism which led up 
[52] 



The Catholic Epistles' 

to the final revolt of the Jews, and the increasing 
recognition that Christianity could not be reck- 
oned as merely one form of the Jewish religion, 
combined to make many Jewish Christians dissatis- 
fied with their new faith and disposed to resume the 
old. 

XIII. 

The Catholic Epistles have ever been much more 
a matter of uncertainty than the Pauline Epistles, 
Of the seven books whose right to a place in the 
New Testament was long questioned, five were 
Catholic Epistles, viz. James, because there were 
doubts about its genuineness, and it seemed to con- 
tradict Paul as to the relation of faith and works ; 
II. Peter and Jude, because one of the two was 
evidently a plagiarism of the other, and both con- 
tained matters perplexing to Christian thought; 
and II. and III. John, because they were so insig- 
nificant, and it was not evident that " the elder " 
who wrote them was John. The other two books 
that were questioned were Hebrews, because its 
authorship was unknown, and Revelation, because 
no one could understand it then any better than 
now, and fanatics used it, — as they have ever 
since, — in support of their teachings. 

The present discussion concerning James is 
[53] 



New Testament Problems 

whether it was one of the earhest books of the 
New Testament, written before Paul's doctrine of 
faith and works had come to the front, or one of 
the very latest, written after that doctrine had lost 
its prominence. For critics generally agree that 
in James the emphasis of works rather than faith 
is not directed against Paul's doctrine, and shows 
that the writer did not have that doctrine in mind. 
Many German scholars would date the book at 
the end of the first century or even well down in the 
second; and the theory has been advanced that it 
originally was a Jewish writing which afterwards 
was transformed into a Christian epistle by the 
insertion of a few Christian phrases. But most 
Eiiglish scholars hold that it was written by the 
brother of our Lord, the leader of the church in 
Jerusalem, who was put to death about 62 A. D., 
and that it is perhaps the earliest Christian docu- 
ment we possess. As such it is a remarkably interest- 
ing epistle, revealing the simple, practical faith of 
the first Christians in days before theological devel- 
opment had begun. It is strongly an echo of the 
Sermon on the Mount, and gives us a fuller repro- 
duction of the ethical teachings of Jesus than can 
be found in all the other epistles. It is written 
in excellent Greek with a cultured choice of words ; 
it abounds in illustrations and in what might be 
called germs of parables ; " and a vein of poetry 
[54] 



The Catholic Epistles 

pervades it, so that it may almost be called a prose 
poem" (Gloag). If the author was the brother 
of Jesus, it casts a sidelight on the training and 
thought of the home in Nazareth, which might 
be utilized more fully in a study of the boyhood 
of Jesus. Its message is a general one to Jewish 
Christians outside of Palestine, encouraging them 
in their trials, and warning them against the special 
sins into which Jews are most liable to fall. 

The evidence that I. Peter was written by the 
Apostle is strong, and the majority of scholars 
accept the epistle as genuine. Whether a Galilean 
fisherman, taken from his boats in middle life, would 
possess the literary skill it displays, may be 
doubted; but nothing was easier than for Peter 
to make use of one of his friends in the labor of 
composition. The statement, " Bj Silvanus, our 
faithful brother as I account him, I have written 
unto you briefly" (5:12), may indicate that it 
was Silas, the well-known companion of Paul, who 
acted as amanuensis. That the epistle has a Paul- 
ine tone is an argument for rather than against its 
genuineness, if Peter had been much with Paul at 
the time when he wrote. For Peter was of an 
impressionable temperament, and readily adopted 
the ideas of his associates. Nor are we surprised 
to find in his book echoes of the Epistle of James 
and Romans and Ephesians. In Jerusalem he had 
[55] 



New Testament Problems 

been intimate with James, and doubtless knew his 
epistle. And at Rome, where tradition says Peter 
spent his last days, Paul's letter to the church in 
Rome and his letter from Rome to the Ephesians 
might be found and would deeply impress Peter. 
There seems to be little doubt that the epistle 
was written from Rome, for which Babylon (5 : 13) 
would be the mystic name ; but whether " she that 
is in Babylon," who sends her salutations, along 
with those of Mark, was the Roman church or was 
Peter's wife who, as we know, used to accompany 
him on his missionary tours, must remain a matter 
of individual opinion. The date we give to the 
epistle will depend upon whether we accept the 
strong tradition that Peter died as a martyr in 
Rome under Nero. He was writing to cheer the 
Christians of Asia Minor who were beginning to 
suffer persecution by the Roman government ; and 
Ramsay thinks that the governmental persecution 
of Christians simply because they were Christians 
did not arise until the days of Vespasian, so that 
Peter must have lived until that time and have 
written about 80 A. D. Such prolongation of his 
life would harmonize with another ancient tradi- 
tion that he was for twenty-five years at the head 
of the church in Rome ; for it is difficult to believe 
that he reached Rome before Paul wrote the Epistle 
to the Romans, say 54 A. D. . But unless Peter 
[56] 



The Catholic Epistles 

was a much younger man than we suppose when he 
became a disciple, he would be decrepit with age by 
the time of Vespasian. Ramsay's opinion about 
governmental persecution is not generally adopted, 
and the date of the epistle is usually put somewhere 
between 60 and 68 A. D. 

Jude and II. Peter are epistles that must be 
studied together; for the writer of one certainly 
made use of the other. But which is the earlier .? 
Is Jude an abridgment of a part of II. Peter, or is 
II. Peter an amplification of Jude with independent 
additions ? The problem is not an easy one, but the 
indications are that Jude is the earlier book. It 
is brief, strong, and symmetrical, and to enlarge 
and dilute it would be an easy task ; but to condense 
II. Peter, retaining the unusual words, bringing to- 
gether the scattered ideas, adding quotations from 
apocalyptical books, and making the result an har- 
monious whole, vfould require great literary skill. 
Moreover, why should a writer who was abridging 
II. Peter, make use of only the central part of the 
book, if the whole of it was before him? Still 
the argument is not conclusive, and the latest com- 
mentator. Biggs, believes that Jude is the later of 
the two books. The peculiar character of Jude, 
its quotation from the Book of Enoch as from 
sacred Scripture, its account of the dispute between 
the archangel Michael and the devil over the body 
[57] 



New Testament Problems 

of Moses, its statement that angels fell into the 
fleshly sins for which Sodom was infamous, and 
were cast down to hell and kept in chains, — all this 
justifies the doubts which have existed from the 
early centuries, as to whether the book ought to 
have a place in the New Testament. If the author 
was the brother of James (and there seems no good 
reason why a forger should ascribe his work to 
such an obscure person), his epistle stands in 
marked contrast to that of James, not only in its 
ideas but even in its language; and we must con- 
clude that the two brothers had very little in com- 
mon. 

Such perplexities about Jude increase the diffi- 
culties about II. Peter. In some ways it strongly 
resembles I. Peter; in other ways it differs just 
as strongly. ]Many of even the conservative scholars 
deny its genuineness ; yet the first chapter is full 
of allusions to the Transfiguration that seem like 
the almost unconscious reminiscences of an eye- 
witness. If the writer made use of Jude, it is still 
less likely that he was Peter, for Jude speaks of the 
Apostles as if they had already passed away. More- 
over, in the closing chapter of II. Peter the epistles 
of Paul are discussed as if a collection of them was 
then well known ; but men would hardly make such a 
collection until Paul himself was dead, and they had 
begun to treasure up the writings he left behind 
[58] 



The Catholic Epistles 

him. Yet if Peter survived Paul for many years 5 
as Ramsay thinks, he may have been acquainted 
with such a collection. Thus we can heap up argu- 
ments on either side concerning the genuineness of 
the epistle. An ingenious solution of the difficulties 
supposes that Peter wrote a brief letter encouraging 
those Christians who were beginning to despair 
of Christ's second coming. In this letter, which 
forms practically the first chapter and the close of 
the last chapter of II. Peter, he promised (1 : IS- 
IS) to stir his readers up from time to time by 
putting them in remembrance. A later writer, 
noting this promise and thinking that Jude was 
such a message as Peter would then give if still 
alive and aware of existing circumstances, took the 
letter of Peter and incorporated Jude in it, with 
such changes and additions as would make the whole 
seem more like original words of the Apostle, and 
published the result as II. Peter. But this is merely 
conjecture. The problems of the two epistles are 
still unsolved, and the books remain " the most 
doubtful writings in the New Testament." 

The strong resemblance in thought and style and 
vocabulary between I. John and the fourth Gospel 
leads most scholars to believe that they were by the 
same author. Whether that author was the Apostle 
John is a matter of more dispute. If the epistle 
stood alone, its genuineness might not be questioned. 
[59] 



New Testament Problems 

But the unwillingness of many to admit that the 
Gospel with its clear revelation of the divinity of 
Jesus is the trustworthy record of the Apostle who 
knew Him most intimately, keeps the discussion 
ever open. The arguments are gone over again 
and again. It is pointed out that Irenasus, the 
pupil of Poly carp, who in turn was the pupil of 
John himself, declares positively John wrote the 
Gospel, and that the long-lost but recently discov- 
ered Diatessaron of Tatian, — a combination of 
the four Gospels made about 170 A. D., — shows 
that the Gospel of John in the time of Irenseus had 
precisely the form in which we have it to-day, and 
received from the church the same recognition as 
the Synoptics. It is also shown by a careful exam- 
ination of the book itself that it must have been 
written by an eye-witness who was one of the origi- 
nal Apostles, and more precisely the Apostle John. 
But all this and much more of evidence, external and 
internal, is explained away and rejected by those 
who are not disposed to accept it, — even as any evi- 
dence can be, unless it is absolutely overwhelming. 
Those who deny the Johannine authorship have 
nothing simple and definite to give us in its place. 
They agree that the Gospel must have been written 
not long after the death of John, and contains much 
that probably was learned from him ; but who 
wrote it, and how it gained immediate acceptance 
[60] 



The Catholic Epistles 

as the work of John, are questions that they answer 
with long and labored hypotheses. To hold that 
John was really the author is to adopt the simple 
and natural explanation of the obvious facts. And 
if John wrote the Gospel, we may also attribute 
to him the epistle. There is little to indicate the 
time and place of its composition ; but we may 
readily accept the old tradition that it was written 
by John at Ephesus in the closing years of his life. 
The epistle seems to be neither a personal letter 
nor a treatise, but a pastoral addressed by the 
Apostle to all his churches, warning them against 
prevalent misconceptions of the Incarnation, and 
exhorting them to brotherly love and Christian obe- 
dience. Farrar suggests that it was meant to 
accompany the Gospel of John as an appendix and 
a practical commentary upon it; certainly, apart 
from the Gospel, or from teachings similar to those 
in the Gospel, " neither the prologue nor other 
parts of the Epistle could have been easily under- 
stood." 

The two little epistles, II. and III. John, are not 
important enough to arouse much discussion. They 
resemble the first epistle sufficiently to justify our 
belief that the author was the same. Whether II. 
John was written to a church or to a lady, whose 
name may have been Electa or Kyria or even Electa 
Kyria, is one of those interesting questions that 
[61] 



New Testament Problems 

must remain unanswered. Both epistles are charm- 
ing Httle personal notes ; and the one to Gaius is 
specially valuable for the ray of hght it casts upon 
church Hfe at the close of the Apostolic Age. 



XIV. 

The Revelation of John was ascribed without 
question to the Apostle by mxen of the second cen- 
tury who had abundant opportunity to know its 
authorship. But in the tliird century scholars 
pointed out that it could not be h\ the same writer 
as the Gospel and epistles, because it differed from 
them so greatly in language, style, and spirit. 
These higher critics of an early day wished to 
disprove its genuineness in order that the mille- 
narians might not use it to support their gross doc- 
trines ; but in recent times the same arguments 
are often used by those who grant that Revelation 
is genuine, and then argue that the other writings 
ascribed to John must be spurious. Various ex- 
planations of the difference between John's writ- 
ings, supposing them all to be genuine, have been 
suggested. In composing Revelation he may pur- 
posely have adopted the language and style of other 
apocalyptic books ; or if he wrote the Gospel and 
epistles in extreme old age, the main labor of com- 
[62] 



The Revelation of John 

position may have been performed by one of his 
disciples. If we suppose that Revelation was written 
many years before the others, we may believe that 
in the interval John had not only gained a more 
perfect mastery of Greek (the style and grammar 
of Revelation are the worst in the New Testament), 
but had also' succeeded in the more difficult task of 
mastering his own spirit, and developing that for- 
bearance and love to all men which are so con- 
spicuous in the epistles and so lacking in Revela- 
tion. Renan and Farrar were confident that the 
book was written about 69 A. D., and thus ante- 
dated by nearly thirty years John's other writings ; 
but recent opinion places its composition in the age 
of Domitian, and thus does away with the possibility 
of any such change in John. A new theory, which 
is gaining some acceptance, denies the integrity 
of the book, and holds that it was made up of 
smaller Jewish and Christian apocalypses of various 
dates. These apocalypses are supposed to have 
been already in circulation in the church, and to 
have been woven together very skilfully into one 
great apocalypse about the end of the century, 
either by John or by some unknown writer. The 
advocates of this theory are applying themselves 
with much enthusiasm to the work of dissecting the 
book and determining the origin of its component 
parts. All we can say at present is that they have 
[63] 



New Testament Problems 

undertaken no easy task, and that until they agree 
among themselves as to results we are not called 
upon to accept or reject their theory. 

Concerning the interpretation of Revelation, 
Robert South once said emphatically, " The more 
it is studied, the less it is understood, as generally 
either finding a man cracked or leaving him so." 
The works upon it form a huge monument of wasted 
time and strength. The book has been explained as 
a picture of events still to come at the end of the 
world, or as a veiled history of the church down 
through the ages wherein one may discover the Pope 
and the Turks and Napoleon Bonaparte and almost 
any of his pet aversions, or as a symbolic account 
of the author's own day, or as a description of the 
good and evil principles that are ever warring 
against each other in the progress of the Kingdom 
of God. A few years ago we seemed to be settling 
down to the opinion that its pictures should be 
interpreted by events under Nero, and that it gave 
us especially a weird but minutely accurate repre- 
sentation of the troublous times in Palestine just 
before the fall of Jerusalem. But now, with the 
inclination to change the date or deny the integrity 
of the book, this opinion is being placed among the 
obsolete ones. Such has been the history of all 
interpretations as far back as the days of Jerome, 
[64] 



The Revelation of John 

who said of Revelation, " Tot verba, tot mys- 
teria.'* 

It is possible, however, that a clearer understand- 
ing of Revelation may yet be reached. The book 
is by no means unique in character. It is an apoca- 
lypse, — a favorite form of composition from the 
time vihen Daniel was written till long after the 
Apostolic Age. There were many apocalypses cur- 
rent in Christ's day, and they did much to shape 
the popular conception of what the Messiah would 
be and do. Some of these have long been known, 
and others have recently been discovered. Scholars 
are rousing to a more careful study of apoca- 
lyptic literature. How does apocalypse differ from 
prophecy? What are the rules for its interpreta- 
tion .? What circumstances call it forth.'' What 
message does its writer usually wish to convey ? An 
answer to these and similar questions is now possible 
since we have so many apocah^pses to stud}^ ; and 
it will help us greatly in understanding both the 
Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation. 
Enough has already been done in this line to war- 
rant the statement that neither Daniel nor Revela- 
tion was intended to throw light upon the end of 
the world or the future history of the church or any 
such similar object concerning which they have been 
eagerly searched. They had a message of cheer 
and comfort for the men of the age in which they 
[65] 



New Testament Problems 

were written, — a message given in a form that 
seems to us strange and obscure, but which doubtless 
was understood by their immediate readers. But 
that message was not for us, except as we stand in 
need of similar cheer and comfort, and it was not 
prophecy in the sense of prediction of far-off 
events. 



XV. 



And now, — to quote words that originally came 
from a preacher but are more often uttered by an 
afflicted congregation, — " Let us hear the conclu- 
sion of the whole matter." The present state of 
New Testament criticism is decidedly encouraging. 
That the New Testament should be forced to pass 
through the fire of critical study was inevitable. 
The past century was an age of historical criticism, 
demanding that every document should undergo 
minute and searching investigation before it was 
accepted as an authority. In such an age, — no 
matter how great the reverence for the New Testa- 
ment, — its documents could not escape that inves- 
tigation. Nor was it desirable that they should; 
for otherwise we should ever have been haunted 
by the suspicion that they were not truly reliable. 
In the beginning of the investigation many students 
were confident that this suspicion would be proved 
LofC. [66] 



Conclusion 

correct ; and for a time there were indications that 
they were right. But, as our survey of the field 
has shown, the opposite has been the result. The 
New Testament text which is offered us to-day is 
proved to be so near to that of the original auto- 
graphs that we can use it with the utmost con- 
fidence as giving practically the words of the 
writers. This fact in itself overthrows the opinion 
that certain passages, especially in the Gospels, 
were later insertions. If they are to be found in 
all the various sources from which we gain the text, 
no personal opinion about their credibility and 
genuineness can avail against this evidence. As 
Headlam points out, " Textual criticism has prob- 
ably already eliminated every verse and passage 
which were not parts of the original text. The at- 
tempts which have been made to mix up the Lower 
and the Higher Criticism have almost invariably 
failed" (Criticism of the N. T. 168). And with 
the exception of a few comparatively unimportant 
books, concerning which there were serious doubts 
as far back as when the Canon was being formed, 
the Higher Criticism has not shaken our confidence 
in the trustworthiness of the New Testament. Hos- 
tile attacks still continue tO' be made, — and un- 
doubtedly will for generations to come; but they 
create far less alarm and make far less impression 
than half a century ago. As one of the most recent 
[67] 



New Testament Problems 

writers upon the subject says, " The result of the 
enquiry, as far as it has proceeded, has been to show 
that as witnesses for the Hfe of Christ and the life 
and thought of the early church the New Testa- 
ment writings need fear no criticism. Criticism has 
reasserted their value, and has shown that when 
subjected to the severest tests of modern science, 
they are found to be historical documents of first- 
rate importance. It has made it possible for Chris- 
tian m.en to continue to believe in the historical 
value of the New Testament with an unsullied con- 
science. . . . For the professed historian general 
agreement as to date and historical value is only 
the prelude to a searching enquiry into the more 
subtle and finer questions which every book will 
suggest to him. For the ordinary Christian these 
have no meaning. Secure in the belief that he is 
dealing with books that are in the main what they 
profess to be, he reads them just as he reads any 
ancient documents, v/ith a healthy disregard of the 
minuter details of criticism, which he regards as 
necessary subjects of enquiry for experts, but as 
of little value for himself " (Contentio Veritatis, 
230, 232). 

THE END. 



[68] 



OCT 6 1903 



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